Comparison of AuriStor File System and AFS

The AuriStor File System inherits the best features and capabilities of the /afs model and addresses its biggest weaknesses and limitations. Upgrading from AFS to AuriStorFS can be done incrementally. AuriStorFS clients and servers integrate two file system protocols: AuristorFS and AFS. The AFS protocol stack is backward compatible with IBM AFS 3.6 and all OpenAFS releases. The AuriStorFS protocol stack provides enhanced functionality, performance optimizations and future extensibility. AuriStorFS caching algorithms are more efficient and reduce overall network traffic. The following table provides a baseline feature comparison.

Feature AuriStorFS OpenAFS 1.8
Year 2038 Safe Yes No
Timestamp Granularity 100ns (UNIX Epoch) 1s (UNIX Epoch)
Rx Listener Single Thread Throughput <= 8.2 gbit/secondA <= 2.4 gbits/second
Rx Listener Threads per ServiceB >up to 48 1
Rx Window Size (default) 128 packets / 180.5KB 32 packets / 44KB
Rx Window Size (maximum) 65535 packets / 90.2MB 32 packets / 44KB
Rx Congestion Window Validation Yes No
Volume IDs per Cell 264 231
Object IDs per Volume 295 directories and 295 files 230 directories and 230 files
Objects per Volume 290 directories or files 226 directories or files
Objects per DirectoryC Up to 2,029,072 up to 64,447
Maximum Distributed DB Size 16 exabytes (264 bytes) 2 gigabytes (231 bytes)
Access Control Lists (ACL) Per Object Per Directory
Access Control Entries (ACE) per ACL More than 400D 20
Directory ACL Inheritance Yes N/A
Volume Maximum Access Control Policies Yes No
Mandatory Locking Yes No
GSS Authentication (YFS-RxGK) Yes No
AES-256/SHA-1 Wire Privacy Yes No
AES-256/SHA-2 Wire Privacy (RFC 8009) Yes No
Wire Integrity Protection YFS-RxGK: Yes; RxKad: No No
Mandatory Security LevelsE Yes No
Cache Poisoning Attack ProtectionF YFS-RxGK: Yes; RxKad: No No
Combined Identity Authentication YFS-RxGK: Yes; RxKad: No No
Perfect Forward Secrecy YFS-RxGK: Yes; RxKad: No No
Secure Callbacks Connections YFS-RxGK: Yes; RxKad: No No
Default Volume Quota 20 GB 5000 KB
Maximum Assignable Quota 16 zettabytes (274 bytes) 2 terabytes (241 bytes)
Maximum Reported Volume Size 16 zettabytes (274 bytes) 2 terabytes (241 bytes)
Maximum Volume Size 16 zettabytes (274 bytes) 16 zettabytes (274 bytes)
Maximum Transferable Volume Size 16 zettabytes (274 bytes) 5.639 terabytesG
Maximum Partition Size 16 zettabytes (274 bytes) 16 zettabytes (274 bytes)
Servers run unprivileged Yes No, must be run as “root”
UBIK quorum initial establishment 23 to 40 seconds 75 to 120 seconds
UBIK quorum establishment after coordinator restart 1 second 75 to 165 seconds
UBIK quorum establishment after coordinator shutdown 23 to 56 seconds 75 to 165 seconds
UBIK servers per cell (usable) Up to 80 Up to 5
UBIK clone servers Voting: Yes; Non-voting: Yes Voting: Yes; Non-voting: No
UBIK server arbitrary ranking Yes No
POSIX O_DIRECT support Yes No
IBM AFS 3.6 client support Yes (AFS protocol only) Yes
OpenAFS 1.x client support Yes (AFS protocol only) Yes
AuriStorFS client support Yes Yes (AFS protocol only)
IBM AFS 3.6 DB server support Yes (AFS protocol only) Yes
OpenAFS 1.x server support Yes (AFS protocol only) Yes
AuriStorFS server support Yes Yes (AFS protocol only)
DB Servers support AuriStorFS file servers Yes Yes (AFS protocol only)
DB Servers support AFS file servers Yes Yes
Thread safe libraries Yes No
File Lock State Callback Notification Yes No
Atomic Create File in Locked State Yes No
Valid AFS3 Volume Status Info Replies Yes No
Server Thread LimitsH Up to OS capability 256
Dynamic Server Thread Pools Yes No
Linux reflink capableI Yes No
File Server MeltdownsJ K No Yes
IPv6 Ready Yes No
Microsoft Direct Access compatible Yes No
Kerberos Profile based configuration Yes No

A Per Rx Listener thread: on RHEL 7 (or similar) AuriStorFS can support one Rx Listener thread per CPU Core permitting saturation of multiple bonded 10gbit network interfaces.
B Multiple listener threads are supported on Linux kernels that provide the necessary functionality. RHEL6v7 and later, RHEL7 and later, and all Linux distributions based upon the Linux 4.x kernel support this feature.
C File names longer than 12 bytes require an additional directory entry for every 32 characters. Large AuriStorFS directories are incompatible with IBM AFS and OpenAFS clients and backup tools that parse volume dumps.
D AuriStorFS ACEs are variable length. The maximum number that can be assigned to an object is dependent upon the number of IDs.
E A Security Level is defined by Rx Security class (rxkad or rxgk) combined with cryptographic requirements for data privacy and integrity protection. Security Levels are enforced by the File Server.
F AFS Clients are susceptible to cache poisoning attacks when the AFS token session key shared with the file server is visible to the end user who can impersonate the fileserver to the cache manager without detection.
G The maximum transferable volume size is limited by the capabilities of the OpenAFS Rx implementation. The maximum number of bytes that can be transferred by as single Rx call in OpenAFS is approximately 5.639 terabytes.
H 64-bit Linux supports up to ~16,000 threads
I Linux BTRFS, XFS and OCFS2 reflinks are used to implement atomic copy-on-write operations that ensure uniform access time to RW volumes after “vos release” and “vos backup” operations.
J OpenAFS File Servers are limited to processing slightly more than one remote procedure call at a time regardless of the number of configured worker threads. A simple test using two UNIX client machines can demonstrate the limitations. On client A copy a file that is large enough to require several minutes to complete to a directory. On client B perform “ls –l” (directory listing with status information) of the directory to which the file is being copied. The “ls –l” will not complete the directory listing until client A’s copy completes. When the number of clients accessing the target directory is larger than the number of worker threads the file server is unable to respond to any client request until the copy completes.
K Another meltdown scenario is triggered by IBM and OpenAFS clients which experience soft-deadlocks during normal AFS3 CallBack processing. When a soft-deadlock occurs, fileserver worker threads can remain blocked for several minutes. Client failover to other fileservers can tie up worker threads.


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